


Of All The Gin Joints

by kakashisninken



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, F/M, Fallout AU, Is it flirting or pining?? You decide!, Kissing, Kylo is a gun for hire, Kylo is a tortured soul who has done some bad thing, Pining, Rey might as well be a slave, Rey works at a bar, Smoking, alcohol use, alternative universe, apocalypse au, maybe more like yearning, rejected proposals??, well kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-12-23 19:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21086258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kakashisninken/pseuds/kakashisninken
Summary: Kylo Ren, a gun for hire, has hit rock bottom as he finds himself in a dingy bar in the settlement of Jakku. He’s frequented the bar every night for the past week yet he’s never seen her before.Reylo AU set in the Fallout universe.





	1. of all the gin joints

As Kylo stepped into bar, the first thing he could smell was liquor and musty cigarette smoke. Hell, he could smell it from outside the door. Keeping his head down, he approached the bar. He needed a drink. Luckily for him, no one down here judged if you had a drink or four at eleven in the morning.

It was dark, melted candles illuminating the mixed plastic and wooden tables. Mix and match chairs tucked in to them. A jukebox played music loudly, a song he had heard many times before played. Not that Atom Bomb Baby was a terrible song, get enough drinks into him and he’d be shouting it’s lyrics from the rooftops.

How did he even find himself in a place like this? The scum of the wasteland. A place where no one who wanted a bright future or a decent life would even think of going near. The truth is, he had always been in places like this. Since leaving Aldeeran at the young age of eighteen. 

He hadn’t been Ben Solo for a long time. Instead he was Kylo Ren. A mercenary, a gun for hire. Shoot first, no questions, caps upfront. If only his mother knew what he would do for a cap. She would doubt there was any Ben Solo left in there.

Kylo sat himself down on the squeaky bar stool. A bar stool that was two hundred years overdue of falling apart. Taking off his hood, he moved stray strands of raven locks away from his face. 

Perhaps he had gone too hard the night before. Mixing vintage scotch and old beer always made him feel crook the morning after, yet once he was several drinks in he seemed to forget the fact. Hair of the dog so they say, Kylo made his way to Niima Tavern as soon as he woke. A good whiskey should do the trick, help the low thumping in his skull.

Kylo needed a job, desperately. Caps were beginning to run low and at this point he's drinking the rest of it up. A large part of himself dreaded having to go back on the job. The hurdles, the people he would have to kill. There was nothing stopping him from taking the loser jobs like escorting a person or fixing a fence. But with those jobs, the caps were few, almost not worth the effort. Retrieving tech or shooting a guy (or two) was how you kept your pouch full. The money is what he enjoyed, not the killing though once he had enjoyed that part too. When he was younger and full of anger. Snoke, a mob boss from the Outer Region, had used that hurt and rage to his advantage. Now Kylo had grown older, ten years older and he was lost, his spirit worn to the bone. It was unknown to Kylo if he would ever get his soul back. 

There was one good thing about being on the job however. At least he wouldn’t be drinking so early on in the day. 

She stood on the other side of the bar. Tan skin, freckles painting her nose. Eyes dark yet the little light that leaked through the holes in the ceiling made them twinkle slightly. She appeared almost angelic in the streaks of light, dust particles danced around her, the girl turned her head towards him, approaching him with her expression blank.

“What can I get you?” Now that she was closer, he saw the twinkle in her eye vanish. Instead something dark lay behind them, something familiar in himself. This girl was not as angelic as he first thought.

“You got any whiskey?” 

“Only if you want the shit stuff”

“The shit stuff?” Kylo questioned. That didn’t sound good, he had been drinking the stuff all week.

The girl leaned in slightly, her voice quiet as she spoke her next words. “The shit stuff is just watered down, makes it go further.”

Kylo’s eyebrow rose slightly. It was no surprise in a place like this, anything for an extra cap. What surprised him was that she would even tell him in the first place, none of the other barmaids had. 

“Oi! Girl! Watch your mouth!” A loud voice boomed from the other end of the bar. A large man, who looked as if he were affected by radiation or inbreeding, sat in a dirty wife beater with a tattered hoodie, nursing a glass of something clear. Kylo doubted it was water. This man must run the place.

Kylo turned back to the girl, unbothered by the warning, instead rolling her eyes. “I’ll grab a bourbon then, the good stuff,” he said as he reached into his pocket, retrieving his cap pouch.

“Coming right up!” she said, bored.

There was no tight collar around her neck, she couldn’t have been a slave. Not unless there were hidden chains behind the counter holding her there, he had not heard any rattling. Yet she was here, in a place like this. Working for an asshole like that. 

Quickly, she poured the old bourbon into the chipped tumbler. Sliding it across the bar towards him. “What are you doing in a place like this?” he asked before taking a sip.

“What do you mean? I work here”

“Why would you want to be in a place like Jakku? It’s a shithole, you could be in some nice settlement up north like… Alderaan or Endor...or something”

Alderaan. The lovely settlement his mother ran. The place where he had been raised, the place he left. If Jakku was hell, Alderaan was heaven by wasteland standards.

“Why are _ you _ here then? Why aren’t you there? In some nice settlement up north...or something” she asked. The girl had a point, a fiery side too.

It was a decent question with many answers. Because he sold his soul for caps. Because he felt like shit, physically and mentally and needed a place to match. Because he’s trying to run as far away from his mother, his father, himself. Because he belonged here.

“You’re going to need to buy another drink if you’re going to want to keep talking, Plutt is watching” she warned, taking his empty tumbler and refilling it.

Another five caps gone, the price he would pay for a drink and an ear.

“So?” Kylo asked, expecting his question to be answered.

“My parents fucked off when I was young, he took me in. Fed me, gave me a roof over my head. It’s not perfect but it’s better than being on the street. I owe him”

“You don’t owe him, you don’t owe anyone anything” Kylo said bluntly.

The girl smiled faintly, as if she had been waiting to hear that for the longest time. 

Kylo sat at the bar for the rest of the afternoon, observing her. The alcohol making him more captivated by her than he usually would be by anything or anyone. Occasionally she would turn to him, pour him another drink and he’d happily turn over all his caps in exchange to see her smile in his direction. Maybe she was taking him for a fool, a drunken, lonely fool. Siphoning whatever was left of his money to please the fat blob of a man still sat at the end of the bar. Maybe this connection he felt with her was all a lie.

But yet he still felt it. Loneliness, a dark past. In desperate need of human connection. Kylo knew she felt it too. Could see it in her eyes, the way she looked off into the distance. Her face peaceful, almost sad as she reflected on God knows what. Kylo wanted to peer inside her mind, figure out who hurt her, what had happened to her.

Kylo did not usually lust over someone. The alcohol did not help. With each drink, he just wanted to get closer. Place a gentle stroke down her cheek, feel her hair tangled in his fingers. 

“He’s gone now, we can talk” she said, interrupting his thoughts, thoughts that were leading to nowhere chivalrous. Plutt, as the girl called him, was no longer sitting at the end of the bar. Instead missing from the bar entirely.

“What’s your name?” Kylo asked as he lit a cigarette.

“I’m Rey”

Rey. Like a ray of sunshine. Funny as she stood under a beam of light that came from the old ceiling. Though he wouldn’t say that to her, he was sure Rey had heard it all before.

“Kylo” he said in return, taking a sip. “Are you trying to get me drunk Rey?”

“Of course I am, it’s my job”

At least she was being honest. 

“You ever think of getting out of here? Going somewhere else?”

“Of course, all the time”

“And yet?”

“Where would I go? What would I do? At least I’m getting some caps from being here. I’m fed, clothed, better off than most folks around here” she sounded as if she was in denial, that her life was not as bad as it seemed. 

“You should aim for something more, Rey”

“Coming from the guy that’s in Jakku, drinking straight bourbon in the afternoon” Kylo couldn’t help but let out a laugh. A valid point. But at least he knew what it was, Rey probably had never seen somewhere better before in her life. 

“How come I’ve never seen you here before?”

The whole week spent in Jakku, he had not seen her. Kylo would have remembered, unable to forget how the loose strands of her brown hair framed her face. How she held herself with the other patrons. No nonsense yet she indulged him, only him.

“Plutt sent me to work, repair stuff. Getting an old Mr Handy working again. Then I worked on an assaultron for the guards.”

“So you’re good with your hands then?” it was a sly comment, an attempt of flirtation. One half of his face lifted in a smile. 

“It’s a passion of mine, yes” Rey smiled. Maybe the first genuine smile she had all day, Kylo felt privileged to be the one to bring it out in her. 

“I hate working here in the bar, it’s what I do most days but occasionally Plutt hires me out to repair things. He takes most of the cut of course but I get some caps out of it. It’s a nice change from all this bullshit too” 

“Don’t you think that’s kind of bullshit? You do all the work and he just takes what he wants” it was bullshit. She’d be rolling in caps if she went on her own. Yet she was taking crumbs and thanking her keeper for it.

“It’s how it goes, that’s just life Kylo” she had moved to turn away from him, towards the shelves of old bottles but quickly he grabbed her wrist. At first hard but loosening his grip as Rey turned to face him once more. Rey frowned, for a moment Kylo was worried he’d be met with her fist into his nose.

“Rey, you’re a slave with better work conditions. Let’s not pretend you’re not” he spoke quietly, perhaps a little bit harsher than the gentle tone he thought he had used. All in hope maybe she’d realise she deserved more, take a stand for herself. Say no more. Like he had done with his family, with Snoke. 

“I have work to do,” she shook his hand off of her arm, her face screwed up in anger as she walked away. Rey had not taken it the way Kylo had intended. She took it as an insult. 

That was that. There was no convincing her, instead he had screwed up any chance with her.

Kylo downed the last of his bourbon, he had done enough damage. Lighting a cigarette, he stood from the stool and walking away from the bar. Weaving through the tables of drunks gambling and arguing. Kylo did not think to look back towards the bar, to look at Rey one last time. If he had he would have noticed her watching as he left, her expression soft and sad.

At night he lay in bed. It was a bed more comfortable than most, even with his legs dangling off the end and a spring poking into his side. The encounter he had with Rey played over and over in his mind like a broken holotape as Kylo stared at the ceiling above him. Watching the dust particles rain down on him as someone stomped heavily above. 

God he just wanted to be torn apart by a Deathclaw. He should never have called her a slave even if it was technically the truth. The image of her face, light and soft falling as he called her such, twisting into an angry mess. Kylo had called many people many things, things much worse than a slave. Yet this was the only occasion in which he found it hard to sleep over. 

It was only because he saw a little bit of himself in her. Ben Solo, a boy who followed his uncle around in the hopes of being enough. Living a life he didn’t want to live only because he thought there was nothing else for him. There was a spark, a connection he felt. Something he had not felt in a long time with anyone. Kylo didn’t want to just ignore it or toss it aside. The two sides of his brain fought, tugged and pulled at each other. 

_ Why did it matter? She’s just a girl. No one from nowhere. There’s a thousand girls out there. She deserves better. There’s something inside her. Do the right thing for once, help her. _

Kylo had to make it right, somehow. 

  



	2. don’t they know it’s the end of the world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t know me at all!”
> 
> “Maybe you’re right, I don’t know you” Kylo said gently. Rey looked to him confused, as if it was not what she wanted to hear after all.
> 
> “But I’ve seen you, when you think no one's watching. I know the look in your eyes because I used to have the same look in mine” that caught her attention. Instead of frowning, she looked up to him gently before looking down to the ground. As if she was avoiding the truth.
> 
> “You deserve more than this” Kylo whispered, leaning in closer to Rey. “I think you know it too… deep, deep down”

Smoke in the air, _Rocket 69_ blaring from the jukebox, Kylo took his seat at the bar. This time of night, folks finishing work up for the day flooded the place. Lingering in a dim corner, he had waited so patiently for someone to leave. taking the opportunity straight away as a short woman in tattered clothing left the bar with a stumble.

He had to talk to her. Had to make sure she couldn’t dismiss him as she served the many people flocking towards her for a drink. Rey hadn’t seen him yet, too preoccupied, the element of surprise was on his side. Serving the man beside him with a sigh, her attention turned to the next patron. Rey’s expression, soft and unassuming, no emotion or thought as she did her job. That changed as she locked eyes with him, like she was awakening from auto pilot. At first it was a quick glance, passing him over before she took a double take, realising it was him, sat in front of her once more.

“And here I was hoping I’d never see you again” she greeted him, unwelcoming.

“Yet here I am” Kylo shrugged.

“I suppose all the girls will be happy to see you, they all cried like babies over your departure” Rey rolled her eyes, wiping a glass with an old rag.

The day after they had met, Kylo left Jakku. Leaving as soon as the sun peeked its head above the horizon. It had been a week, a long week since he had left. Travelling for days on end, barely resting. It was all due to some crazy idea Kylo got stuck in his head the night after he had met Rey. Alone in his bed, unable to sleep. Creating a plan with intricate steps on how to make things right with her. The first steps of course were easier than the next steps ahead of him.

“What about you? Did _you_ cry when I left?” he teased.

“Order something and then go” Rey warned, her tone conveying something more sinister behind her words. A challenge, an ‘_or else_’. 

Kylo met her challenge. He couldn’t make her leave, Plutt would never let her. Men like him didn’t give a single fuck if someone was causing his ‘staff’ trouble, as long as they weren’t directly bothering him. A symptom of greed. Caps were caps and he had many now, a crucial component to his plan.

“I’ll have a whiskey,” Kylo said as he retrieved his cap pouch, “hopefully you’ll have the good stuff on you this time”

“I’ve got something for you alright.” 

At least she was talking to him. A good step in the right direction. 

Patrons started a line on each side of Kylo as he sat patiently at the bar. The drunken customers shoving each other as some struggled to keep their balance, all in anticipation for another drink. It seemed as if you would serve one person only for another three more to appear in line after them.

“Can we talk?” he asked as she slid the drink across to him, Kylo’s hand stopped the tumbler in its tracks resulting in minor spillage.

Rey was about to move onto someone else but stopped quickly. “I have nothing to say to you.”

Then Rey was gone, serving another person. One would think that would be the end of any further conversation, but Kylo would wait. He’d happily wait. Watching Rey working had quickly become one of his favourite things to do, reality being Kylo did not have any favourite things to do or anything better to do.

Pulling out a cigarette, he took a quick sip of his drink as he rummaged in his pocket for a lighter. The familiar mighty burn of whiskey was diluted, a tingle down his throat rather than a pleasant burn. The whiskey had been watered down more than the Niima Tavern would normally served.

As Kylo watched Rey service the crowd, he had reflected on his week, his journey. It was a two day trek from Jakku to Takodana. Nights spent eating molerat meat and Instamash by fire light, barely getting any rest as he stayed on high alert. The wasteland was a dangerous place and only the dumb died. The dumb or those who had no one to watch their back. Takodana was a refreshing sight to see after his trek. He had barely even thought about the short wrinkly ghoul who ran the place. Oh how she was a nightmare to deal with at times.

“You want another drink?” Rey had interrupted his thoughts, quickly checking in on him. Kylo supposed he couldn’t flatter himself, it was her job to take his caps.

“Sure, bourbon this time” Kylo eyebrow rose knowingly at Rey. She knew he knew about the watered down whiskey and frankly, she didn’t care.

Rey grabbed his tumbler swiftly and roughly, slamming it down on her own counter before pouring the amber liquid. A way to let out her frustrations without hearing about it from Plutt later.

“I’d like to talk to you later…” Kylo said as he slid his caps across the counter, Rey sliding over the tumbler in exchange, “...I want to make things right.”

Rey huffed, rolling her eyes. Her brow scrunched up as she thought for a moment, Kylo looked to her with hope. A slight attempt at puppy eyes, something he was never good at (according to his father anyway). 

“Fine, I get off in an hour.” Rey did not care to linger around, she left him to serve someone else. If she had bothered to look back to him, she would have seen the lit up expression painted on Kylo’s face. The plan was in motion.

Kylo moved to a free table now, nursing his bourbon and puffing on a cigarette as he watched Rey. Becoming lost in his thoughts. Rey had a beautiful smile, one she flashed briefly as she served a woman at the bar. Someone she must know Kylo had assumed. 

_“I rock ‘em, roll ‘em all night long. I’m a sixty-minute man_” the song sung through the jukebox.

Kylo laughed to himself for a moment, taking in the lyrics of the song, reading in between the lines. There was no way any man could be a sixty minute man but hell they all certainly tried. Even Kylo himself would admit he couldn’t last that long. 

As his eyes kept locked on Rey, Kylo hadn’t noticed a man pull up a chair beside him.

“Your tank is looking a bit empty” the man had said, slamming a glass onto the table, sliding it in his direction.

The man seemed tough enough, his biceps strained against the fabric of his worn and faded long sleeve shirt, begging to be released. There was an old tattoo by his eyebrow and under his eye. An anchor and an eagle, both terribly drawn and faded. Typical quality from a wasteland tattoo artist with a broken tattoo gun and ink from ballpoint pens. The man had to be older than Kylo, easily but he was stocky. Kylo quickly noted that if anything got out of hand, at least his height would give him an advantage. For now, he accepted the drink from the stranger, a free drink was a free drink after all.

“It sure was” Kylo said as he took a sip. Vodka. Not his favourite but again, a drink is a drink.

“You look familiar, must have seen you somewhere around here recently. My long term memory isn’t what it used to be” another way to say ‘_I’m too brain damaged from fighting or from drinking too much_’. 

“Depends where you’ve been recently” Kylo was smart enough not to give too much away, keep it vague and open, a handy and sly trick learnt from his politician mother. They used to say politicians were sneaky, two hundred years later and it was still the same.

“Well I live here but recently I went on a lovely trip to the Inner Region” the man looked to Kylo knowingly, a smile danced across his lips. This was all a game.

Sure, Kylo had been to the Inner Region recently. It’s where he had been just before he came back to Jakku but what it had to do with this man, he was unsure.

“A nice place this time of year don’t you think? The coast is a great place to go if you can deal with the mirelurks” Kylo indulged in small talk, keeping the conversation light. He didn’t want nor feel the need to get on a personal level with a stranger. Well, not this stranger anyway.

It wasn’t as if he had been doing anything criminal in the Inner Region, not that there were any laws. Morally questionable on the other hand perhaps. He was only there for the job, the job Maz Kanata had given him in the first place. 

Maz Kanata, the fiery ghoul in charge of Takodana and an old family friend. He used to sit on her knee as a child, listen to stories about Sunday picnics in the park and Christmas light shows. Kylo wouldn’t dare try and sit on her knee now, most likely would crush her fragile two hundred and twenty year old bones to dust. She was a good person to turn to, a person he had turned to for many years as he made his own way in the world. Always willing to help him out at the small price of having to endure her berating him for not contacting his mother. 

“I remember now. Tall, long dark hair, pretty boy face with that big gnarly scar. Can’t forget a face like that”

Kylo was not insecure about the scar running from his eye down his cheek. If anything the scar helped people avoid him, though at the time he was not thanking Snoke for giving it to him. 

“Is there a point to all this?”

“You’re a gun for hire, aren't you?”

Right. Now Kylo was getting somewhere. The drink wasn’t a friendly one, it was the attempted start of a business relationship. Kylo had become bored of the conversation at that point, he puffed on a cigarette dangling from his lips as he turned his attention back onto Rey. Wanting to catch the little glances she threw his way.

“You for hire?”

“Depends on the job” Kylo said bluntly.

There was absolutely no form of interest from Kylo. He knew men like this, and their crew too. The crew was almost formed of kids who somehow found their way into crews, mostly under the impression they’ll get rich. Kids who were naive, shit at following directions, and thicker than Brahmin shit. The job always something simple made out to be more confusing and tedious than it had to be. Jobs like that, despite the caps, were more trouble than it was worth.

Kylo spotted Rey taking off her apron as she chatted to another woman behind the bar. Another barmaid who had served him a couple of weeks prior. He was ready to pounce on her, already rehearsing what he was going to say the whole trek to Jakku. The anticipation of being close to her made him feel strange, a feeling unrecognisable but on the tip of his tongue. A feeling of lust mixed in with the giddiness of a school boy crush. Now all that was left to do was get rid of this guy so he could talk to her, settle things once and for all. 

“If you’re serious about hiring me, know I’m not cheap. Come back here tomorrow in the morning and we’ll talk details if you’re interested,” Kylo said as he stood from the table, sculling the rest of the vodka quickly. 

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said politely as he could, leaving the table without another word or look to the man, his focus entirely on Rey, standing by the entrance of the tavern waiting for him.

Kylo followed her out of the tavern. The fresh air from outside hitting him all at once. Cold and refreshing, almost sobering. 

“What did Teedo want?” she asked, ahead of him as they walked through the settlement.

Teedo, Kylo assumed, must have been the man speaking to him. “Wanted to hire me for a job”

“He’s one of Plutt’s guys, I wouldn’t get mixed up in that if I were you,” she cautioned.

Rey did not say anymore as she walked through town, leading Kylo to an isolated corner of the settlement. Behind a small garage, right up against a fence, only leaving a small and intimate gap to talk.

“Talk” Rey demanded.

Kylo took a breath before he launched into it, hoping everything he had spent days rehearsing didn’t escape him now he had the opportunity to express it all.

“I want to apologise for implying you were a slave” 

“Well… I accept your apology. Are we done?” Rey turned to leave. Kylo intercepted quickly, his hand reaching for her wrist gently, pulling her back. Closer to him.

“No...” his hand still rest on her wrist, not wanting to let go just yet. 

“I’m just gonna come out and say it. You deserve better Rey-“

“Here we go again, I’m over this-“

“Listen, okay…”

Kylo moved himself closer to Rey, taking in all her features. Her soft brown eyes twinkling in the moonlight, the ridge of her nose narrow, her lips slightly plump. It took every ounce of willpower not to meet her lips with his own.

“My mother was a slave for a short time, before she escaped. I know what it looks like, I was just concerned. No one should ever be in a situation like that. I said what I said because I think you deserve better. Even if you don’t want to hear it”

“I don’t understand why you can’t just leave it alone. Leave me alone. I’m not anything or anyone special, there are three other girls working for Plutt and I don’t see you trying to ‘rescue’ them!” Rey said, her hands launching into the air. “You don’t know me at all!”

“Maybe you’re right, I don’t know you” Kylo said gently. Rey looked to him confused, as if it was not what she wanted to hear after all.

“But I’ve seen you, when you think no one's watching. I know the look in your eyes because I used to have the same look in mine” that caught her attention. Instead of frowning, she looked up to him gently before looking down to the ground. As if she was avoiding the truth.

“You deserve more than this” Kylo whispered, leaning in closer to Rey. “I think you know it too… deep, deep down” 

As Kylo closed in on the space between then, Rey found herself pinned against the old brick wall, she could have easily fought back if she hadn't wanted any of this. But she entertained him as he leaned closer, his nose meeting hers as Kylo continued to speak. 

“I know there’s a part of you that wants to see what’s out there. I know there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to die here” he whispered.

They were so incredibly close. Kylo could feel the heat between them, Rey’s deep breaths tickling his skin. Their eyes locked onto each other for a moment. Kylo looking away to glance at her lips, inviting him for a taste. His hand met her cheek, slowly stroking her soft skin. A thought he indulged himself in many times since the week he had met her. Rey closed her eyes for a moment, embracing the feeling of someone else’s touch. A touch he suspected she had never been given before. 

Her eyes opened as he leaned in further. The anticipation killing them both as Kylo’s lips made his way to hers. Slowly approaching without protest before they collided gently. 

The only way to describe their kiss was electric, as if he had been jolted by a faulty wire. Kylo had kissed girls before but he had never felt such an energy before. It started slowly and gently, inexperienced before it gained heat. Rey’s arms snaking around his neck, Kylo’s hands cupping her face. 

It was Rey who let go first, initially shocked not only at the kiss itself but at herself for even kissing a man she hardly knew. A man she was angry at only a matter of minutes earlier. 

“Rey, join me” Kylo said, stroking her arm as he reached for her hand.

“I-“ Rey had begun, only to fall flat. Unable to think straight, overwhelmed by the last five minutes of her life. 

“We can go anywhere you want, I have more than enough caps. Me and you” 

He had thought about this moment over and over. Rey would smile at him, her eyes would light up. She’d take her small hand in his and say ‘_yes_’ but as they stood facing each other, no longer in his daydreams, it was a different story. Rey looked down at the ground, her eyes refused to make contact. She sighed heavily, finally looking up to him, her mouth trying to make words only to stop in hesitation. Kylo’s face fell and Rey could see it, which only made the whole thing harder.

“I don’t think I can” Rey said quietly, tears started to form in her eyes, glistening in the moonlight as they threatened to fall.

“Why not?” 

“I just… I don’t think I can do that” 

A silence fell between them. Her hand fell from Kylo’s grip, their fingers no longer laced together. Both were unsure how to proceed. For a moment Kylo tried to muster up everything in his power to beg her, plead, convince her to come with him. 

“Kylo… I’m sorry, I have to go” and with that she squeezed past him to leave.

“Rey!” Kylo called for her, his heart raced as she turned around. “I’ll come back for you, every time, I promise” 

Rey did not stay to ask him what it meant, she understood what it meant. A vow he would not stop trying to make her see what he saw. Turning the corner of the building, she didn’t look back before she disappeared, leaving Kylo standing there all by himself. 

Cigarette in hand, Kylo walked back to his room that night, replaying it all in his mind. Trying to understand what had happened. His emotions rising and crashing like waves of anger, frustration, sadness and confusion. Where did he go wrong? Was it something he said? Why was she so content on staying someplace like this? What was he going to do?

The plan had gone to shit. How could he have ever thought he could just scrape together enough caps, come back here and have her leave with him on a moments notice. It had all made sense in his head as he thought it out before, but now he was lost.

The kiss was not apart of the plan but it was something he had wanted to do, allowing himself a moment of weakness. From how it all went, he was sure she wanted to kiss him just as much. Somehow this complicated things further. Instead of being able to think straight, all Kylo could think about was the softness of her lips and how her fingers caressed the back of his neck. 

Kylo fought sleep, reviewing his options. On one hand, he could just leave Jakku. Bury the thought of Rey, her secret smile and enchanting eyes deep down. Find an actual place to settle down, get his shit together once and for all. On the other, he could wait a little longer, wait for her to change her mind. If she ever did change her mind. Keep the promise he made to her even though she probably didn’t want it. It was all puzzling, overwhelming. 

The sadness and frustration he had felt at her rejection ceased to matter when he finally set on trying to sleep. Instead of thinking of the rejection, he thought about her lips, how his hands fit some perfectly cupping her face. It was enough for now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay okay thanks for reading first of all.
> 
> secondly, I uploaded this at like 1am last night but re read it and found so many mistakes I missed so I took it down and reposted it.
> 
> I’ve decided to make this a three part because two parts just didn’t go far enough to explore what I wanted to explore with this. And I’m quite excited to finish them, maybe a little sad idk.
> 
> Also I was so excited to write their kiss bc I had been thinking about it since I posted the first chapter.
> 
> Anyways again thank you for reading. You can find me on twitter @benswolos and on tumblr @spaceypriestess 🥰🥰

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello. First off thank you for reading. I’ve been wanting to do a fallout AU for awhile now. This is probably going to be a two part. Just a short story because short stories are only what my brain can take right now. Still I’m excited to get this out.
> 
> I’m on tumblr and Twitter @spaceypriestess if you want to come find me 💖


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